Lisa brought George back on Friday. I notice instantly how thin and gaunt he looks. This medication is a diaretic so he’s loosing fluid quite quickly and we’ve been told to expect a small drop in weight in the first week. It’s not good to see though. Having been told that he has fluid on his lungs we’re trying not to be paranoid about his breathing, but I find myself listening to him constantly.

Saturday we go into Peckham – and come across two of my least favourite musical types in an unholy combination: a busker is playing Bryan Adams on a set of panpipes! Nasty.

We end up having lunch in a local Wetherspoons where they’re doing a promotion giving away free pints. This has the opposite of the desired effect – attracting only the people who would normally be in there on a Saturday morning but making them more obnoxious than they would otherwise be thus driving away any new clientele. Lisa gets chatted up at the bar (and this is before she even starts breastfeeding!).

However, Peckam wethersppons isn’t all bad – one nice gent helps us up the steps with the pram and another comes over to meet George. A plaque on the wall (wetherspoons like to give their pubs a sense of history – whilst at the same time irradicating anything that gave them character) describes a time before gang warfare became Peckham’s most well known export.
Peckham is a great place to buy veg and there’s a lot of fish shops – so we managed to get some huge tiger prawns.

Recipe: rich, spicy prawns
4 very large raw tiger prawns - you can use king prawns but use more of them. Take the heads off- but don’t peel them (I only took the heads off so I could make a stock for another dish with them.

In a small pan, heat about a table spoon of oil, add 4 tablespoons of soy sauce and 4 of balsamic vinager. Add a pinch of dried chilli seeds and some salt and boil until the mixture reduces to a thick, sticky paste. Add the prawns and fry, coating in the mixture until they turn pink.

The result is a very rich, strong sauce. You can peel the prawns if you want to (although I usually eat them with the skins). And you can dip the prawns to give them as much or as little of the powerful sauce as you like.

Lisa’s parents came back from Thanksgiving in the states today, and stayed for lunch before heading off to Worthing. Lisa took George to the doctors to be weighed and he hasn’t gained or lost any weight. That’s good I guess, but the real test will be next Monday.